System Builder Marathon, Sept. 2011: $2000 Performance PC

Deals
By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Storage

Main Storage: Adata S511 120 GB SSD

Every high-end build deserves an SSD, and picking one wasn’t very difficult since our storage guru Andrew Ku has tested most of them. When faced with the choice between models based on the same controller logic, this editor simply asked his colleague to decide.

Read Customer Reviews of Adata's S511 120 GB SSD

Adata’s S511 is one of the fastest 120 GB models we could afford. Though it’s outpaced by some higher-capacity versions, none of those would fit within our budget. Adata’s inclusion of a 3.5” adapter tray would save us even more money, since our low-cost case does not include native support for the 2.5” drive form factor.

Mass Storage: Western Digital Caviar Green 2 TB

A 120 GB SSD fills up fairly quickly when lots of applications are hosted on it. And data can chew up anything left over, particularly when a system is designed as much for video encoding as it is for gaming. Fortunately, 2 TB of magnetic storage is cheap when performance isn’t your priority.

Read Customer Reviews of Western Digital's Caviar Green 2 TB

An upgrade from our previous system’s 1 TB Samsung drive costs us around $15 more, while doubling capacity.

Optical Storage: Lite-On iHAS224-06 DVD Rewriter

The only functional feature reduction from our previous build is the loss of Blu-ray support. Unfortunately, we needed to make that change in order to free up room in the budget for increased graphics capability. While we still recommend a Blu-ray drive in all high-end builds, we’re counting on the sacrifice here to boost our benchmark performance elsewhere.

Read Customer Reviews of Lite-On's iHAS224-06 DVD Burner

DVD write speed improves to 24x compared to the previous build’s 16x, so our downgrade isn’t a complete loss. This OEM version of the iHAS224-06 even includes Nero 9 Essentials to assist burning and playback needs, and the entire package costs a mere $21.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
120 Comments Comment from the forums
  • wrazor
    Great article. I am wondering, if instead you had gone with the EVGA 3GB GTX 570 SLI, maybe OC would have been possible? 2000$ is quite a bit of money. I wonder how these babies would hold out for Nvidia's 3D experience? Personally I am not a big 3D fan in theatres(headache and stuff), but gaming has to have a chance. You had an article on projectors gaming experience? Do it with 3d performance\eyefinity with the system marathon builds? That would be really cool. :)
    Reply
  • Yargnit
    I'm actually surprised that after the recent micro-stutter article you didn't opt for 3x 570's/6950's/6970's instead of 2x 580's. the First two should be cheaper than 2x 580's, while the third would cost very similarly.

    All three should have provided at least equal performance, and been better on intangible benefits to micro stuttering.
    Reply
  • DjEaZy
    ... a bit of stagnation in performance department... no big difference in Q2 and Q3 models... gonna wait til bulldozer...
    Reply
  • decembermouse
    Poor case decision. Inadequate PSU (did you seriously expect good overclocking results?). Nice graphics, but severely limited by the other components. Hence, "nice graphics" doesn't matter. It's like putting a V10 inside a Dodge Neon. Just... why? I make a point of using good cases even in less-expensive builds. Compromising on PSU and the case are two things I've learned are no-nos. We can see how this hurt the outcome, When any OC whatsoever results in instability, you've made a mistake (or several).

    Now I know we'll see the usual "well this is meant to be a learning experience, learn from our errors and improve for next time" comments, but these are not mistakes I expect to see Tom's writers making. Even non-uber-enthusiast readers can probably see that some of the imbalances here. No result is horrible, but I'd have expected Tom's to look at that Newegg shopping cart and immediately think "nope guys, this isn't right. This gfx setup... in an Antec 300?" etc.

    Always love these articles guys, keep them up! Even if I do disagree with some of the choices obviously ;) Really looking forward to $1k and $500 builds in the coming days!
    Reply
  • anonymous x
    decembermousePoor case decision. Inadequate PSU (did you seriously expect good overclocking results?).No, this case cools better than many (most?) cases more expensive than it. 2x 120mm intake is more than adequate for SLI cards with room for air to flow between them. Did you even look at the power consumption numbers? The system when overclocked only consumed 697w at load from the wall (actual consumption is less), while the PSU is rated at 850w.
    Reply
  • Pawessum16
    Where the heck did they get that SSD for $170????? It's $205 on Newegg, and that's after a $35 price drop. What a steal....
    Reply
  • Hupiscratch
    These SBM keep becoming cheaper. At first was 5k, then 2.5k and now is 2k for the enthusiast one. The recession is beating hard.
    Reply
  • karma831
    All I can say is...WOW you guys have bad luck with overclocking.
    Reply
  • jestersage
    maybe one of the 120mm fans should have been placed on the side panel? just wondering...
    Reply
  • iam2thecrowe
    all i have to say is, ditch the crappy Gigabyte motherboard and get sonething better, and for the price difference get the i5 2500k, its no real loss to the i7.
    Reply